Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Poor uptake of sanitary pads in India: Preference for unhygienic methods (due to unique stigmas), no means to access/dispose of pads safely with dignity, and lack of local infrastructure to manage waste. Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) not understood as gateway for long-term reproductive, maternal, newborn, child + adolescent health (RMNCH+A): Lack of market understanding/beneficiary engagement prevents cost-effective product development and sustainable innovation across the continuum.

Diarrhea is the 2nd leading cause of mortality for children under five worldwide, causing nearly 800,000 deaths per year. Sanitation work in developing countries has largely addressed the needs of adults while ignoring children’s sanitation and the associated burden on mothers. Recognizing the crucial importance of safe sanitation for children has recently grown in the WASH and nutrition sectors. Children’s feces are more infective than adults’ due to a higher pathogen load. Our Bold Idea is to test a practical and sustainable way for caregivers to dispose of child feces safely.

WaterAid will revolutionise rural health centres by testing affordable and efficient technologies and mechanisms in three of the poorest provinces of Cambodia. Once scaled, these will give health centres the support they need to reduce maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. We will use a WASHFIT risk-based approach, designed by WHO, that aligns with Cambodia's National Health Strategy to improve WASH services. The approach will test technology, assess usability and through strong government relationships, enable scalability across Cambodia’s 1100 health centres.

The project is a dual concept of providing nutritional supplement and purifying water using indigenous biodegradable polymers, ispaghula husk and sodium alginate. The team has already established the water purification efficiency of the indigenous biodegradable polymer granules using facile and cost effective technique. The developed granules (1 g/ L) were found to successfully remove 99% of gram positive and gram negative microbes from 1000000 CFU/ mL and 99% azodyes (0.2 g/ L).

The innovation that the proposed project adopts is delivery of comprehensive package of market led solutions that contributed to repairing the dysfunctional sanitation market ecosystem. It will contribute to the goal of decreasing mortality and morbidity of children under five by reducing Open defecation (OD) through facilitation of a sustainable and dynamic market for sanitation product and service delivery. OD can lead to fecal contamination, which contributes significantly to infant morbidity and mortality and stunting in children.

In developing countries, foodborne bacteria is a significant cause of illness and death especially for those with compromised or undeveloped immune systems, such as pregnant women and infants. Foodborne pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria, Campylobacter and Salmonella often cause birth defects, miscarriage and diarrhea, but do not have simple identification tests. Diarrhea is a common illness associated with contaminated food, unsafe water, and bad sanitation, causing 1 in 9 child deaths worldwide (10-15% in sub-Saharan Africa and 5-10% in Egypt).

Low-cost interventions integrating latrine construction and use, hand washing with soap and household-based treatment of drinking-water and safe storage are targeted to significantly reduce the pathogen load observed in environments with poor WASH conditions and thereby improving maternal, newborn and child health. The aim of the project is to develop a sustainable business model for solar powered kiosks which deliver safe drinking water to low-income consumers.

Discarded menstrual hygiene products contribute to hundreds of thousands of tons of waste each year. In Bangladesh, where waste management systems are lacking, disposable pads clog latrines and canals. Reusable menstrual cloths are more environmentally friendly and affordable. However, stigma prevents girls and women from washing and drying reusable cloths hygienically in open view. The use of insufficiently clean and dry cloths may contribute to reproductive and urinary tract infections.

Pad Heaven Initiative manufactures sanitary pads using banana and bamboo fibres.We aim to provide affordable sanitary pads, while reducing girl's absenteeism from school during their periods. Their technology converts the plant pulps to make pads that are hygienic, affordable and 95% bio-degradable.Statistics show that over 2.5 million schoolgirls coming from poor backgrounds cannot afford to buy commercial sanitary pads. This can be attributed to the high unemployment rate in Kenya, which currently stands at 40% with about 45.9% of the population living below the poverty line.

Public toilets are vital to the design of sustainable, inclusive cities. Without proper regulation, and management incentives public toilets suffer from inadequate maintenance and unhygienic conditions. Women and children are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to sanitary toilets, and are most likely to "hold on", resulting in urine and pathogen retention, bladder distension, and continence problems. They are also disproportionately affected by the negative nutritional consequences of Nepal’s toilet sanitation crisis.